If you' ve been to my house (and I know who you are) then you will be familiar with my support of the Sonos platform. In my mind, it is the most elegant way available for the above-average Joe (not average, it's still to expensive for that Joe) to stream music through his/her (yes, I know a Jo and a Joe) house. The interface, both on PC and on their wireless remote, is intuitive and simple to operate. The networking of the devices is truely plug-and-play, and with Version 2.0 they added true support for Rhapsody (no more needing a PC to engage the stream) thus allowing anyone with a Rhapsody account to listen to the millions of songs available at any time without having to fire up a computer.
Rhapsody support not such a big deal, you say? I sold my spare units to a friend who had seen them at my house but was not going to pull the trigger because he uses Rhapsody on his PC at home, hooked up to his stereo. Version 2.0 sealed that deal nicely.
Now comes version 2.1. The desktop software now has Vista support. Big whoop, you say, Vista ain't out yet for the general user. Ok, you want whoop? How about adding support for:
- AOL® Music Now
- Napster™
- URGE™
- Wal-Mart®
- Yahoo! Music™ Unlimited
- Zune™ Marketplace
Is that whoop enough for you?
Really, I'm very excited for them. They are now supporting (almost) all the major players in the digital music game (hello Apple, yes, I'm talking about you) and I can only assume they are doing it with the same aplomb they apply to everything they do.
They also say they've improved volume normalization and playlist support. I will report back on this when I get home an install the new version.
No, I do not work for them, nor have I received any free stuff from them. Heck, I tried to track them down at CES today (before I got this e-mail) to see what they had up their sleeves but I completely failed to find their booth. Has anyone else found them and if so, can you point me in the right direction? Thanks.
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